sat suite question viewer

Problem-Solving and Data Analysis Difficulty: Medium

The figure presents a scatterplot. The horizontal axis is labeled “High jump height, in feet,” and the numbers 0 through 6, in increments of 1, are indicated. The vertical axis is labeled “Long jump distance, in feet,” and the numbers 0 through 20, in increments of 2, are indicated. There are 20 dots indicated on the scatterplot. The dots begin in the lower left part of the plane, at the dot with coordinates 1 comma 2, and trend upward and to the right until they end in the upper right part of the plane, at the dot with coordinates 5 comma 15.

Each dot in the scatterplot above represents the height x, in feet, in the high jump, and the distance y, in feet, in the long jump, made by each student in a group of twenty students. The graph of which of the following equations is a line that most closely fits the data?

Back question 118 of 383 Next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383

Explanation

Choice C is correct. A line that most closely fits the data is a line with an approximately balanced number of data points above and below the line. Fitting a line to the data shown results in a line with an approximate slope of 3 and a y-intercept near the point $with coordinates 0 comma 1$ . An equation for the line can be written in slope-intercept form, $y equals, m x plus b$ , where m is the slope and b is the y-coordinate of the y-intercept. The equation $y equals, 3 point 3 0 x plus 0 point 8 2$ in choice C fits the data most closely.

Choices A and B are incorrect because the slope of the lines of these equations is 0.82, which is a value that is too small to be the slope of the line that fits the data shown. Choice D is incorrect. The graph of this equation has a y-intercept at $the point with coordinates 0 comma negative 3 point 3 0$ , not $the point with coordinates 0 comma 0 point 8 2$ . This line would lie below all of the data points, and therefore would not closely fit the data.